Short story by Ho Anh Thai: Waiting for the earthquake

Just two months ago, he suffered a stroke and fell to the ground. He literally fell to the ground. He was standing in the house when he suddenly felt a little dizzy, a little lightheaded, a little swaying. He passed out. When he opened his eyes, he found himself lying on the floor.

Now he was feeling that feeling again. A little dizzy, a little swaying, a little spinning. The head swayed a little as if signaling that he was about to fall. It happened again. He thought for a moment, he had to lessen the impact of the fall. He quickly lowered his head, quickly pressed his forehead against the keyboard of the computer. He was sure that if he fainted, it would only be the impact of his head hitting the computer, not falling to the floor.

But he didn’t faint. Instead, he heard his colleagues rushing out of the office. Someone shouted, what sounded like run. Run. A rumble down the hallway. Fire or explosion or something. So it wasn’t a new stroke. So he didn’t faint. But the only immediate choice was to run or not to run. His colleagues were already running like ducks.

Pushing each other down the emergency exit. At this time, who would dare to run into the elevator? The twelfth floor down to the ground, more than two hundred steps, not a small amount. But the mass run swept people away, the panic engulfed them, no one thought about tired knees and numb feet anymore. He ran past a girl who crouched down to grab the red shoe that had just slipped off her foot. At this time, there were no more clogs or sandals. Then he caught a glimpse of a guy carrying a girl down the remaining dozens of stairs. Carrying her husband on her back to go out, when they reached the wading area, they dropped him. Here, a guy was carrying a girl on his back. Only a newlywed couple would carry each other like that. It could also be a boyfriend and girlfriend, after this chaotic run, the act of carrying them could make them get married.

It turned out to be an earthquake. I have been to countries where there is an earthquake every day. In the Middle East. In an island nation in the middle of the sea in Southeast Asia. Don't be alarmed by an earthquake every day, the country is vast, yesterday there was an earthquake in the East, today there was an earthquake in the West, tomorrow in the North, the day after tomorrow in the South, thousands of weak earthquakes only one strong one. Over there, they build high-rise buildings with steel frames. Build a steel frame, form a complete high-rise building in the sky, the horizontal beams and vertical columns are all made of steel, and finally, in that steel frame, people install walls. Such careful construction, not like in our country where they skimp on materials or use poor quality materials in neighboring countries, just a few average tremors and you will know who you are.

Illustration: Vu Thuy

Over there, for every thousand weak earthquakes, there is only one strong one. Usually it is just a slight shaking, like dizziness. The time he fainted from cerebral ischemia, in the moment before he fell, he thought it was like back in the Middle East, where there was an earthquake every day. Shaking, swaying, shaking. Gentle for a few seconds and then it stopped. He thought it was an earthquake, but it turned out to be cerebral ischemia.

And now, what I thought was cerebral anemia turned out to be an earthquake.

The office workers ran down to the ground, then all rushed out in front of the buildings. They were chattering happily as if they had escaped death. They were laughing and chatting like popcorn. The young people were jumping and stretching their legs as they ran as far as they could through dozens of floors. The damage was that their muscles would ache in the next few days due to the unusual movement. The most damaged was the girl with red shoes, the branded shoes worth tens of millions of dong, now one of them had a broken heel. She sat down on the sidewalk, one hand holding her shoes, the other holding the broken heel, resenting the sudden earthquake that had caused such heavy damage to her alone. Why did our city have an earthquake? No. This earthquake was in the mountains. According to the butterfly effect, the epicenter was in the middle of the mountains and forests, but the tall buildings here were shaking.

Just an earthquake in the mountains and our city is like that. Even in the capital Hanoi, don't think that there are no earthquakes. It is right on the Red River fault zone, which has had earthquakes in history and the fault zone shows signs of reactivation in modern times. That is the assertion of my friend, a geologist. That geologist had warned of the danger in articles and scientific works from decades ago. The articles sent to newspapers were not published. The works sent to the authorities only received silence. It is probably okay to talk about geology, but adding a warning is like sitting in a car next to the driver and talking about a traffic accident. The geologist persisted tirelessly, always and everywhere he talked about the Red River fault zone. For many people, a cerebral ischemia is just an earthquake, for many others an earthquake is just a cerebral ischemia.

***

He went on a business trip to a neighboring island nation in the South Pacific. He went to a province that still applied religious law. Without needing government law, criminals could be brought to trial right in the ward or commune. For example, if a neighbor stole a goat, a people's court would be set up right in the ward or commune, and the religious law would apply. Thirty lashes. Thieves did not have their hands chopped off like in a Middle Eastern country, but thirty lashes were enough to make them crawl.

He had been working for a session with the local import-export corporation when he learned that there was a trial at the city stadium that afternoon. A young couple had been caught alive when she went to his room. The moral police, tipped off, broke down the door and caught them red-handed. The man was unmarried and the woman was unmarried, but the problem was that the couple were not husband and wife. If the sacred scriptures were used, adultery would be punished with fifty lashes each. Public punishment, public whipping, where everyone could see, to set an example.

The public can come and watch. Foreigners can come and watch. Just think of it as going to the stadium to watch a football match. He expressed his desire to go and watch. The group's foreign affairs lady happily agreed to take him. She was still wondering where to find a place to visit to fill the gap in his schedule.

The foreign affairs lady arranged for him to sit in the A stand. In the middle of the field, they had built a wooden platform that looked like a small stage. The two guilty people and the person punishing them would appear on that small stage. The punishment would take place on that small stage. All around the stand, ten thousand people would see it. Clearly.

The crowd sitting around occasionally shouted slogans and beat drums deafeningly. Boom boom boom boom. Just like football fans. But unlike football fans, they were also allowed to bring into the stadium banners promoting traditional morality. Boom boom. Chastity is virtue. Boom boom. Chastity for marriage. Boom boom. Adultery is hell. Slogans were raised. Slogans were shouted. Drums were pounding. People's faces were shouting and laughing happily. People's faces were burning with lust today, but tomorrow they could be arrested and brought onto that small stage. Positions could be swapped. Regardless, if you haven't been arrested, you're not guilty, if you haven't been arrested, you have the right to beat drums, shout slogans and watch the show.

But he did not get to see it in detail. It was well past time and the trial had still not begun.

Over thirty minutes.

Forty minutes.

One hour.

One hour twenty three minutes.

At one hour and twenty-three minutes, the stadium’s loudspeaker system relayed information from the city’s radio station. The disaster agency issued an emergency announcement: an earthquake was imminent in the city area, with a predicted magnitude of over 7. The announcement also advised people to stay away from tall buildings, beaches, and lakes, to take shelter in parks and open spaces, and to follow news updates via radio and phone apps.

Suddenly, the crowd in the stands rushed down to the stadium. As residents of the earthquake zone, no one had more experience in earthquake prevention than them. There was not a single person in the stands. If the earthquake was over 7 on the Richter scale, the stands would probably collapse. The safest place was the stadium, a large open space with no roof. They stood and sat crowded on the field, chatting and waiting. Waiting for the earthquake.

The foreign affairs lady of course led him down to the yard, standing near the small stage where the trial and the punishment beating were supposed to have taken place. They looked up at the empty stage like subjects looking up at an empty throne, hoping that a wise king would step up and sit there. Waiting. The miscreants jumped on the stage and acted out a dramatic play about the punishment of a criminal. Two young men knelt down to pretend to be a couple caught in the act. A bearded, muscular man played the punisher, holding an imaginary whip in his hand, which he lashed down on the backs of the two crying and whining people.

That's exactly the scene of the flogging, my dear. The foreign affairs lady said. She explained to describe more specifically the drama taking place on stage. They were leading two men and a woman onto the wooden floor. They were wearing loose, prison-style clothes. White. Prison clothes are not white, but the clothes of prisoners being flogged are always white. No one knows the true intention of the person who first decided that the prisoners' clothes should be white, but one thing is certain: after the flogging, the back of the prisoner's shirt will be soaked in red blood. Red blood all over the white fabric. Twenty lashes or more are enough to make them faint. They step onto the wooden floor with their own feet, but when they get off, they have to be carried on a stretcher. An ambulance with flashing red lights is waiting to take them to the hospital.

Religious court. The ward or district chief comes up to announce the reason and give a lecture on religious ethics. The civil defense officer comes up to question the two criminals about the crimes they have committed. He quotes the provisions of the sacred scriptures on the punishment of adultery. Finally, it is the butcher's turn. Butcher is just a name, but in his hand he does not have a butcher knife to stab, slash and chop. It is just a rattan whip, not a big rattan stick but small rattan strands braided in the shape of a girl's pigtail. The rattan strands are very flexible and twisted together, and wherever they are whipped, they tighten the flesh, and when the whip wraps tightly around it before pulling out, it can drag out streaks of flesh. Each strand of flesh, like a chopstick, clings tightly to the inside of the cloth shirt. After the beating, the shirt with the dried flesh strands is sent back to the criminals so that they can look at it and remember it for the rest of their lives.

The punishment did not come. The great earthquake did not come. Only occasionally the ground trembled slightly. It could only be felt as a kind of dizziness of a mentally ill person. Shaking. Shaking. Shaking. Lightly, but no one could ask God if those slight shakings were the prelude to a great earthquake. The foreign affairs lady said that fourteen years ago, a tsunami swept away the entire city. An earthquake offshore caused the tsunami. The sea rushed in and swept away twenty thousand people who were sleeping. In the museum of the double disaster, there was still a round-faced wall clock from someone's house. The hour and minute hands stopped at four thirty-four in the morning. Exactly when the tsunami hit the city, the clock stopped at that moment. He unconsciously tilted his hand to look at the clock. Seventeen forty-one. It was foolish to say that if anything happened at that moment, people would find the watch on his wrist stopped at that exact moment.

The earthquake hadn’t come yet. It could come at any moment. The fans had stopped beating drums and shouting slogans. The afternoon sun was slanting west, forcing them to cover their heads with banners. Chastity is a virtue. Chastity is for marriage. Fornication is hell. Cover up. Wear it over your head. It would be a relief from the scorching sun. They had engaged in a phone-calling contest. They had accessed earthquake forecasting sites. The foreign affairs lady had called her family, and they had run to the large square nearby. They were relieved to be in the open.

Standing bored, then sitting. Then lying down. Occasionally the loudspeaker updates warnings and recommendations. When it comes to forecasting, nothing is certain. If the radio reports a storm, it will rain, if it reports sunshine, it will be nothing. Experience in a country where there is an earthquake every day can make people get used to it, but when warned, they are aware of being cautious. In the evening, the government sent food trucks to the evacuation centers. The entrances to the stands around the stadium became food distribution areas. Each person was given a loaf of bread and a bottle of water. He received one portion. When it was the foreign affairs lady's turn, the bread was gone, and they promised to come back later. The two of them shared a loaf, half a loaf each, and even joked with each other that half a loaf of bread was half a truth. Each person got half a truth. Original text: half a loaf of bread is bread, but half a truth is not the truth. Her family sent another message, in the evacuation square, people were carrying gas stoves and pans to cook for themselves, the smoke was everywhere. In this stadium, the quarantine situation made people only know how to stand, sit, and lie down. After eating, they lay down again. They were all lined up like fish in the vast yard. Her family told her about the tsunami fourteen years ago, the sea rushed ashore in a flash and then immediately receded, people went to collect the corpses and put them in the temple yard, also lined up like fish in this vast yard.

He thought to himself that the Red River fault zone had not yet become active again, and that if the earth dragon were to stir up trouble one day, there would not be a vacant lot like this to put fish. Urban land was prime land. Wards and districts had no place left to be kept as vacant lots. Any vacant space would be quickly filled with high-rise buildings by the hawk-eyed landlords. Apartment complexes were built close together, dozens of stories high, inside and outside the apartment buildings, not even a large park, not even a vacant lot. Running all the way from the thirtieth floor down to the street, even if he could make it in time, but down to the street there was not a single vacant lot that could temporarily shelter from an earthquake. Not a single vacant lot. Running in all directions, high-rise buildings would collapse on his head.

That night, he sat and waited in the stadium. Or rather, he lay down and waited. The foreign affairs lady was too tired and lay down beside him. She and he, one working in foreign affairs for the corporation, the other looking for new business partners, the nature of their work had never caused them to sleep in the open like this. It was truly like sleeping in the open. During the night, the ground seemed to shake at times, but the shaking was not enough to cause panic among the people lying and sitting.

In the morning, the lockdown was lifted. A cool breeze blew through the stadium, refreshing and dispelling the anxiety. People poured out of the stands as if they had just watched a night game. Cheerful and happy. The men carrying drums and small drums took turns beating their drums as if their team had just won. Banners were scattered all over the stadium. During the night, the billboards had been used as bedding.

He signed a memorandum of understanding to continue cooperation. The business trip was considered a success. But at the same time, there was a feeling of something missing. People said that this island nation had two specialties: one was the public flogging of criminals with rattan canes, and the other was earthquakes. If you came here and didn't see these two things with your own eyes, you might as well not have been there.

Both of those things, he had only just come close to witnessing. Just a little bit more. It had passed him by, or he had passed it.